User reviews

This movie is stuck somewhere between a theatrical release-quality film and a direct to DVD movie, but much better than your ordinary Sci-Fi channel special.

The acting is top quality. All characters, especially the one portrayed by Shea, are portrayed exceptionally well. The plot keeps you glued to your seat, and you can't wait to see what happens next or how they will think of a way out of their predicament.

The only problems lie in the filming of the "monster" and to a lesser degree, the sound. I'm not a personal fan of the "flicker" style of filming so it may work for others. I prefer a fluid style of filming throughout the entire film. It's hard to keep track of the events occurring when things "flash" around rapidly.

But if you can overlook it's extremely minor flaws, you're in for a treat with this one. The acting and the central theme of the plot are strong enough to overcome its shortcomings.

My final ratings: Quality: 7 Entertainment level: 7 Overall: 7 Consensus: This might be Toby Wilkins' break as a writer/director and is a standout performance for Shea Whigham

In all honesty, I actually thought it would be rubbish. However, to my surprise it was quite good. Okay it is not perfect, some of the effects are mediocre, the sound is murky and the editing in scenes could have been tighter, there are times when it is rather shaky. That said, Splinter could have been so much worse than how it turned out. The story is loose, well paced and benefits from a good and well-thought-out idea, the monster is appropriately effective and the direction, script, performances and characters(the antagonist especially is very interesting and original, which was really refreshing in itself) are all good. All in all, I thought it would be really bad, but it was actually much better than expected. 7/10 Bethany Cox

Plot wise, this is a pretty typical zombie/infection style story - but the type of infection is a really great twist. I'll keep it that vague just so that you can enjoy it as blind as possible. Acting is decent, and while it's definitely a low budget movie, most of the effects look pretty good (there's some shots that are pretty rough though).

The problem is with the "action" scenes. I can handle some shaky cam, but the shaky cam in this movie is some of the worst I've ever seen - you can't follow anything. In one scene, a character gets killed but I literally couldn't tell until the other characters were reacting to it after it happened. I have to assume that the shaky cam is done to hide the lower budget effects, but it's bad enough that I'd rather see low budget effects.

Overall I do think that the movie is worth a watch because it's a really fascinating spin on the zombie/infection type of story - just know that the shaky cam is VERY bad.

I saw this movie around the time that it first came out and I remember thinking that it was fairly good, but nothing I'd watch again. In the interim, I keep seeing this movie popping up on my favorite horror sites as an underrated movie, so I figured I'd give it another whirl.

First, the necessary prerequisite is that you have to like low budget movies. If you are going into this expecting the effects level of your summer blockbuster, or top notch acting, you're going to be disappointed. I don't mind indie films, at all, and don't want to judge them on their limitations. Basically, did the movie entertain me? The other ingredient that seems necessary to mention in a review of this movie is the similarities to THE THING. How you judge that may depend on where you, personally, draw the line between "homage" and "blatant ripoff". I never felt it crossed that line into stealing an idea, but certainly lifted some ideas from that horror classic, especially in the way that the organism seems to take control of human bodies and essentially replicate them, as well as its ability for each part to exist separately from the whole.

The central plot revolves around 4 people trapped at a gas station by some sort of invading organism that is almost unstoppable. They are barricaded inside a small building with limited defenses against the invading threat, so we get a little bit of Night of The Living Dead, as well.

My second viewing seemed to pretty much re-instill what I thought the first time around. This is an entertaining movie that will keep you riveted for the short run time of its' story, but nothing here sticks with me as being a modern classic, or even one of the best indie horrors of the past few years. Shea Wigham is really good, as usual, in the cliché role of a criminal with a good heart. I thought that Jill Wagner does a serviceable job as a strong female lead. Her boyfriend is pretty much annoying and I found myself at times hoping he would die next.

The effects are very limited and most of the violence is shot in quick camera angles, which is a good way of hiding their limitations, but also sometimes leaves the viewer wondering what the heck just happened. This was especially true of the first female death in the movie, as you never got any sense of the violence that might lead to her demise. There are some good shots that do serve to show what the director probably really had hidden in his imagination but wasn't able to translate to screen.

The creature itself presents some interesting impetus to the movie. As mentioned, it's fairly unstoppable which lends to the feeling of helplessness in our main characters. A few of the infected hosts pull off a really good Silent Hill look with twitchy movements and not-quite-in-the-right-place body parts. Ultimately, to transcend the Thing comparisions, they needed to develop more the plot points they introduced early in the film, such as the oil testing site, or this idea of an old forest nearby. That depth might have helped the movie to elevate from popcorn passer to truly memorably movie.

So this movie is a kind of an independent horror film. It's working with a lower budget.

But first off the acting is not just adequate, it's great.

The characters are believable and well cast.

Splinter makes great use of it's low budget. With good acting, some gnarly gore and good creature design. It's the best it can be on a low budget. And it is good.

Is it amazing? No. But it doesn't have any glaring flaws. A nice movie for a friday night.

It's a great indie sci-fi/creature feature movie. With a solid script and no glaring flaws.

I thought about giving it a 6/10 because it's not earth-shattering but I think it deserves a 7/10 for how solid and well executed it is.

In the end it is a smart little creature feature that makes the most of it's budget.

In comparison to some of the terrible creature features that the Sci-Fi Channel shows, Splinter is definitely better. It's characters are pretty well rounded and believable and they do sensible things in an attempt to survive the menace.

But, as with many recent productions - every time the action gets going and every time the creature attacks - the camera goes into such chaotic movement that you can't even tell what's going on. I understand in part this may have been necessary to hide some low budget special effects but in this film, it's just way too much. Spinning, zooming, panning shaky-cam and rapid editing just end up frustrating the viewer. The creature concept seems to have taken a inspiration from "The Thing" - in being an organic amalgamation of dead human bodyparts - but I honestly couldn't quite say for sure, because I never caught a glimpse of it that wasn't in blurred motion. Truly a sad way to spoil an otherwise creepy and fun flick.

A young couple Seth Belzer and Polly Watt retreat to the wilderness for a romantic camping weekend,but their idyll is shattered when they are car-jacked by an escaped convict and his drug-addicted girlfriend, Dennis Farell and Lacey Belisleon,on the run from the police.As the foursome travel the back roads together they find themselves in deeper trouble than any of them could have imagined-a blood-crazed,parasitic creature that absorbs the corpses of its victims has laid claim to the woods and the two couples are now in its sights.Finding shelter at an abandoned gas station,they must use their wits and every weapon at their disposal to stave off the onslaught,not only from the insatiable creature,but also each other.The premise of "Splinter" is very simple and quite suspenseful.The film is obviously influenced by John Carpenter's classic "The Thing" and offers plenty of gore.The special effects are pretty good:during most of the creature shots,it looks as if there's a real corpse on screen.The use of hand-held camera is the main drawback of the film.It is obnoxious and should be slightly toned down.Still "Splinter" is a competent indie horror flick with enough grue to satisfy genre fans.7 out of 10.

This film would be a 6, maybe a 7 for me. However the director somehow failed to notice that every time they called action their cameraman was in the middle of a fit.

The movie basically goes like this: Shake shake shake.

Oh someone died back there.

Shake shake shake plot shake shake shake.

It's a real shame as the creature looked quite cool but you never really see it for long enough to appreciate this. Even static scenes in the gas station have to wobble about just to punch home the peril of the situation to us.

The film gave me motion sickness.

M

The premise has been done many times before, but this film does it right. Apparently "Splinter" is an independent film, but it doesn't deserve to be lumped in the same category as the hundreds of "low budget" horror movies out there that are hardly more than a few friends with a camcorder and some ketchup packets. The production value here looks as good as many Hollywood movies, and the "monster" is done particularly well. The three main actors are great, and the characters are likable.

This movie isn't going to change the genre or make anyone's Top 10 list, but it's definitely one of the more entertaining horror films I've seen in the last couple of years. It's a fun way to spend 80 minutes. My 8 out of 10 rating is a bit over-inflated simply because there have been so many terrible horror movies put out recently that it was refreshing to genuinely enjoy one from start to finish. A more realistic rating would be 6 or 6.5. Totally worth the price of admission, and I look forward to seeing more from this director in the future.

Trapped in an isolated gas station by a voracious Splinter parasite that transforms its still living victims into deadly hosts, a young couple and an escaped convict (Shea Whigham) must find a way to work together to survive this primal terror.

This film features really cool effects, allegedly without the need for CGI. Toby Wilkins is incredible, and has lived up to the man whose shadow he had been under for a while (Sam Raimi).

The plot is also good, and makes us think about internal and external threats. Externally is the creature, internally is the convict and conflict between people. But perhaps even more internal is the parasite, sort of creating a three-tiered layer of terror.

"Splinter" won six awards at the Screamfest Horror Film Festival: Best Editing, Best Score, Best Special Effects, Best Make-Up, Best Directing and Best Picture. "Splinter" was a nominee for Best Horror Film at the 35th Annual Saturn Awards, but it lost to "Hellboy II: The Golden Army", which is fair. It was also nominated in Spike TV's 2009 Scream Awards for Most Memorable Mutilation for the arm removal scene, but lost to "Saw V"'s Pendulum Trap, arguably a raw deal.

So, it's apparently a good idea to have so many cuts and so much camera waving that we don't get to see a kill? This editing "style" is so spastic that it might as well be an episode of Monday Night RAW. If I can't see what's happening, what is the point of a visual format? Two stars because the concept IS interesting. The execution just isn't very good. Also, the people playing the camping couple are bad actors, especially the nerd boyfriend.

I am a fan of horror movies; cheesy horror movies, scary horror movies, big budget horror movies, and the latter. However, the unfortunate part about following horror movies is that it can be a difficult genre to articulate masterfully.

The movie Splinter makes the most out of what it is given, and it puts into place horrific devices that make the horror genre really shine. The film offers wit so far as having space for individual character development and unique character choices. However, the pacing of the movie is not cogent and the movie steered too far away from what makes a movie scary.

Still though, it offers sci-fi aspects to it and is well acted throughout - I give Splinter a 6 out of 10.

A nice little horror movie, "Splinter" isn't brilliant, but it's engaging nevertheless. It offers a creepy atmosphere and competent acting. My main quibble is with the writing -- specifically, the sometimes illogical and implausible things the characters do and the occasionally silly dialogue.

I also would have liked an explanation of what the creature was and how it formed. There's a lot of talk about the age of the trees and how the surrounding woods are an "old forest," but this fact never comes into play in relation to the creature. Nor does the orange sign (which seems important because the camera zooms in to show it to us) posted by the side of the road proclaiming the region an "experimental" area. Perhaps there are plans to explain everything in a sequel. Despite these shortcomings, this film is worth seeing.

This will have you shaking your head as you follow the lead from the Filmmakers who can't stop shaking the Camera. Why oh why would you go through the effort to Create Creatures and then not let the Audience in on it. Anytime there is a Scene with elevated Suspense and Monster Mania, the Camera seems to have an epileptic fit. It zooms, swirls, shakes, bobs, and is absolutely out of control. The result, not counting nausea and headaches, is that you never ever get a sense, let alone a clear look at what is happening.

It almost makes this "Thing" unwatchable, or enjoyable on any level. It has some stuff going for it and there was no need for the Director to feel so insecure about His Creatures in a Creature Feature. The slim Story and some annoying Characters needed those Monsters to deliver anything more than another anemic amoeba split off from all parasites that came before.

If the Camera would have stood still long enough for some visual thrills and some, any, comprehension of what they were up against (the silly walking hand was not enough), this could have been better than Average. As it stands (there shaking), it becomes just more of the same.

This is a quick-moving well done little horror film. It has some similarities to John Carpenter's The Thing, but def isn't on that level. If you like Monster movies/Body horror this is one to check out.

The acting is solid. The FXs were really well done. The movie moves along at a great pace. This is a prime example of a film working because of a shorter runtime. I think any longer and this might have started to bog down some. Instead, it kicks into high gear early and doesn't slow down until the end.

I really didn't have any major issues with anything in the film. Some of it did feel familiar, and there were a few annoying character moments. Overall, that's all very minor and nothing that hurts the film in any sort of way.

If you haven't checked it out, it's worth a watch!

My Rating: 6/10

Splinter boasts solid performances, reasonable production values, and some delightfully nasty ideas (including the removal of an infected arm by Stanley knife!). It could have been good, but it isn't..

It doesn't matter in the slightest that the film never explains the precise nature of its threat—we don't necessarily need to know that in order to enjoy what is occurring—but for a film such as this to be truly effective, the viewer at least needs to be able to SEE what is going on; sadly, for much of the movie, it's nigh on impossible to follow what is happening to whom thanks to the dreadful wobbly-cam/rapid editing techniques employed by director Toby Wilkins.

The picture is all over the shop whenever anything potentially exciting happens, robbing the action of any tension and rendering shocks ineffective. I suspect that the use of such erratic camera-work was used to disguise sub-par effects, but all it does is make the whole affair extremely frustrating to watch.

Wilkins does at least get one thing right—he puts his lovely lead actress Jill Wagner in a tight vest for the duration—but even the ever-present eye-candy doesn't prevent this from feeling like a wasted opportunity.

This is the classical Thriller-Horror movie of a group of characters trapped in a place surrounded by things/people that can kill them. In this case there is a monster outside, but clearly this is no "Assault on Precinct 13". The movie is mildly entertaining. The characters are not very well written, but they are not horrible either. The special effects are fine; not good not bad. And I would have enjoyed it much more if it wasn't because of the stupid modern resource of the shaky camera and electric editing, that makes the end result just barely bearable.

The genre of the creature feature hasn't had a good shot in the arm for some time. This is a really great movie that combine elements of monster mayhem (one of the most original I've ever seen), zombie action and good old fashioned morality play (including transgression, redemption and sacrifice). Those of you out for gore will not be disappointed. The very nature of the creature in this film makes for some very squirm inducing scenes.

I feel the acting is somewhat above par. I was genuinely interested in these characters and thought that there was some real development here. It was also nice to see a strong, take-no-prisoners female lead; reversing the classic damsel in distress formula far too common in movies of this type.

It's fast paced, very well produced and completely worth your time and money. Nice to see an "independent" film deliver the goods!